Don't Wait for Daylight
by emimprov
Summary: For reasons unknown to the Doctor, the TARDIS is drawn to an inner city in the 1990s. There he meets a chronically depressed girl who shuns his help, but it looks like he will eventually need hers. 11th Doctor and OC. Somewhat AU. M for later chapters.


**Don't Wait for Daylight**

**Summary: **For reasons unknown to the Doctor, the TARDIS is drawn to an inner city in the 1990s. There he meets a chronically depressed girl who shuns his help, but it looks like he will eventually end up needing hers. 11th Doctor and OC. Somewhat AU, I suppose. Rated M for dark themes, language, and violence later.

**Chapter One**

The view was beautiful. Rotating slowly above Earth in the TARDIS, the Doctor glanced down on and took in the sight of the small blue planet. There really was nothing else like it, at least not in this galaxy.

He didn't know why he was so drawn to this planet, after so many years of traversing time and the universe. He always seemed to come back to it. Humans...he scoffed. So helpless in some ways, but so incredibly amazing in others. He wasn't exactly sure in which time period he was in at the moment, but it must have been before major damage had been done to the main continents of Earth. Everything looked crisp, clean, and intact from his vantage point.

Suddenly, a zapping noise rocked the air and the TARDIS bucked. Startled, the Doctor swiveled to look back to the console. Everything seemed to be operating normally, except for a small green button under one of the monitors that was blinking rapidly. He mumbled softly to himself and walked inside to see what was the matter. The TARDIS had so many buttons, knobs, levers, and pulleys that the Doctor sometimes forgot what some of them did. Of course, he was an expert at flying the thing, but he couldn't be expected to memorize ALL of them all at once, right? The important part was getting to within 10 years or 10 miles of his target destination. At least that was what he told himself.

So why didn't he remember ever seeing this button before? He hesitated, but pressed it. The monitor above instantly lit up, letters appearing in the same shade of green as the button. "_Distress signal. Planet Earth. Year: 1996. City: Baltimore." _

"What is this, now?" the Doctor asked aloud. "I don't remember having installed a distress signal location device...thingy." He slapped the button again. "Come on now, TARDIS, you can give me a little more information than that, can't you?" The TARDIS hummed in response, almost as if it were laughing at him.

"Well, you could at least tell me who's sending it out," he said, almost pleading. But it was useless. He knew talking to the machine wasn't going to do much good. He instead walked over to the main console and after pushing a few buttons, realized that he was indeed in the year 1996.

"The distress signal must be beaming out right now," he muttered, tapping his chin thoughtfully. "That means..." He glanced at the flight controls. "Someone down there is in trouble right this second. But...how do I help them?"

He grinned cheekily. "Act first...think of genius plan to save everyone later." With that, he took control of the flight mechanism and prepared to land the TARDIS in the first deserted alley he could find.

The ride down was a bit bumpy, just as the Doctor had predicted. Pollution above the city made it difficult to see, and when he had finally found a suitable place to land, the TARDIS seemed to disagree with him, jerking in the opposite direction. Fighting with the controls seemed futile, so the Doctor let the ship go on its own until it finally bumped to an undignified stop in a particularly dirty alley off of one of the mains treets. He rememebered why he didn't usually "fly" the TARDIS, choosing instead for it to materialize in exactly the right spot in time. Oh well, it was always good to practice.

The Doctor steadied himself, grabbed his key and sonic, and headed towards the door. He looked back expectantly at the monitor controlled by the green button, but the distress signal had disappeared and only a blank screen greeted him. He opened the doors.

It was pitch black. Dark, even for the dead of night. This was what struck the Doctor as most unnerving. The only lights came from nearby street lamps. Looking up, he tried to find the moon but was only rewarded with the more familiar black of space.

He raised his gaze at the slap of sneakers on pavement. A ragged-looking girl ran past him, seemingly completely oblivious to the strange sight of a blue box taking up half of an alleyway. In fact, she swerved past it almost nonchalantly, looking back in annoyance as she did.

"Excuse me, is there, ehm...some sort of problem going on around here?" the Doctor asked politely. The girl stopped running, turning to look at him lazily. Her wild-looking eyes narrowed. He took in all at once how unkempt she looked, and the fact that she held a gun in her hand. He gulped.

"The hell you doing? You live in that box?" Her voice was harsh.

"In a manner of speaking, yes." For as hard as he tried, the Doctor couldn't take his eyes off of the gun.

"You homeless, then? You don't look homeless."

The Doctor looked down at his clothes. "Well...no. I guess I don't." He straightened his bowtie, as if to prove the point. "Really, though, miss...?"

"I'm not tellin' you my name."

"It's fine. I just have a question. Is there something going on in this city, or in the world for that matter, that has people worried or upset? Just tell me that."

The girl smirked, and her face twisted into a look of condescension."Fuck, man, you really must be stupid," she said. "The sun hasn't come out for three days."


End file.
